A 17-year-old Californian visiting his sister was abducted at Newark Airport by a phony car-service driver who demanded $340 for his release, cops said yesterday.

The kidnap drama ended several hours later when Raphael Leonardo Peralta was found unharmed. Cops were still searching for his kidnapper last night.

Peralta disappeared about 5:40 a.m. yesterday when he arrived on an overnight Continental Airlines flight from Los Angeles, according to Port Authority police.

The teenager had arranged to be picked up by his sister and stay at her Hempstead, L.I., home, they said.

But when Peralta left Terminal C for the street level, he was approached by a driver of a black Lincoln Town Car who persuaded him to get in by assuring him he would be taken to the sister, said a spokesman for the authority, Steve Coleman.

The sister, who was not identified, arrived at the airport unaware of what had happened. She contacted Port Authority police to report him missing.

Meanwhile Peralta’s brother, who lives in South Norwalk, Conn., received a series of calls, apparently from the driver’s cell phone, demanding $340 for the youth’s return.

“At one point the boy got on the phone to speak to relatives,” Coleman said, and he indicated he hadn’t been harmed or was in physical danger.

Port Authority officers spent the day trying to locate the teen and driver both on and off airport property.

They also put out an alert to police in New York, New Jersey and other states.

But the boy was found yesterday afternoon in a parking garage at the airport.

Coleman said there was no explanation of the “extremely unusual” dollar amount demanded, and there were no cases of similar abductions in the airport’s recent history.

The Peralta family was described as immigrants from Honduras and not wealthy.

The driver was not in uniform and his car was not marked but it appeared to be a typical Town Car like those used by car services, Coleman said.

Police found no witnesses to indicate that the driver’s brief encounter at the airport was anything other than a limo driver picking up a pre-arranged passenger.

It was not immediately clear if the driver was looking specifically for Peralta.